How 'The Kissing Hand' Led to One Mom's Heartwarming Back-to-School Tradition
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, SheKnows may receive an affiliate commission.
Children’s librarian and former educator Melissa Harrington knows her stuff when it comes to books — so when a parent asks her for recommendations on the perfect kids’ book for back-to-school, she has just the thing: The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. It’s about an adorable raccoon named Chester who is wary of starting school, and the sweet way his mom, Mrs. Raccoon, soothes his fears with a kiss on his paw to remind him that she’s always there. The book has more than 6,000 perfect reviews on Amazon, and parents are raving, saying things like: “This book, above anything else we tried, helped my daughter adjust to going to school,” and “I read a ridiculous amount of books to my little one. This one I will remember forever.”
More from SheKnows
For Melissa, the recommendation isn’t just professional; it’s personal. “The Kissing Hand was a book I read in a Children’s Literature course in college, and I promised myself that when I had children, I would read this book the night before their first day of school,” she told SheKnows. Her daughter Joslyn was born in 2005, and Melissa kept that promise.
“The night before Joslyn started Kindergarten we read the book,” she said. “The next morning I drew a little heart on her hand, so she could feel those tingles straight to her heart and know that if she were to ‘feel lonely and need a little loving from home'” — which, adorably, is a quote from the book — “she could look down at the heart and remember that I love her.”
Click here to read the full article.
As all parents know, our kids aren’t the only ones who need some first-day reassurance, so Melissa also had Joslyn draw a heart on her hand and kiss it, too. It helped both of them so much that they decided to keep the tradition going — right up until Joslyn headed into her senior year of high school, bolstered once again by the reassuring presence of the little heart drawn on her hand.
But the first-day ritual didn’t end there. Fast-forward to this 2023; just this week, Joslyn headed off for her first day of college. And instead of a heart drawn on their hands, they commemorated the mother-daughter tradition by making it permanent, in the form of tiny heart tattoos on their wrists.
Courtesy of Melissa Harrington
This has got to be one of the sweetest back-to-school traditions we’ve ever heard of! If you’re inspired to start your own Kissing Hand tradition, you’re in luck, because the classic book is available at Amazon … and you can get it just in time for the first day of school.
The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn
For the Harrington family, what started out as a way to safeguard against first-day jitters ended up being a cherished tradition that has lasted through every first day of school (and is now being continued with Joslyn’s younger brother Cameron). When a simple story has the power to turn into a treasured memory, it’s the kind of thing you want to pass on.
Launch Gallery: Beautiful & Brilliant Children's Books by Black Authors & Artists
Best of SheKnows
Sign up for SheKnows' Newsletter.
For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
